Chaos Unleashed
The following saga involves several Manson girls, a decapitated body, a man who was tricked into digging his own grave, a head that went missing, two people discovered in the trunk of a burning car, a girl who was found wandering around naked with her arms cut off, a man sentenced to 878 years to life, and a tale of offspring gone bad.
Decapitated Body
After the Tate-LaBianca murder trial, ‘Manson girls’ Nancy Pitman, Maria Alonzo, and Priscilla Cooper, along with three members of the Aryan Brotherhood named Michael Monfort, James Craig, and William Goucher, moved into a cabin at Parker’s Resort, located in Guerneville, California.
They were joined by James and Lauren Willett, who brought their infant daughter, Heidi, with them.
On November 8, 1972, the decapitated body of 26-year-old James Willett, a former Marine, was found in a shallow grave with his hand sticking out of the ground. He had been shot multiple times, with both a pistol and a shotgun.
Four days later, on November 12, the body of his wife, 19-year-old Lauren Olmstead Willett, was discovered buried in the crawl space of a house in Stockton. She had been shot in the head with a .38 bullet.
Nancy Pitman, 24; Michael Monfort, 24; James Craig, 33; William Goucher, 23; Priscilla Cooper, 21; and Lynette Fromme, 24; were arrested in connection with the murders.
The authorities were led to Lauren Willett’s body after Monfort used James Willett’s name and papers to get released on bail following his arrest for a liquor store robbery.
Russian Roulette
The group earned their living through armed robberies. James Willett, the son of a Kentucky Distiller, wanted to quit the gang and leave with his wife and child. However, according to Goucher’s grand jury testimony, Lauren Willett had an affair with James Craig, and she was in no hurry to leave the crew. James Willett was killed out of fear that he was going to snitch on the gang and expose their activities.
Priscilla Cooper told law enforcement that Monfort had accidentally shot Lauren Willett in the head while playing a game of Russian roulette. It later became evident that she was murdered to silence her, following the discovery of her husband’s body. Heidi Willett, the daughter of James and Lauren, was unharmed and ended up with her grandmother.
Dug His Own Grave
According to Goucher, who turned state witness and testified against his co-defendants, Monfort tricked James Willett into digging his own grave under the pretext that the hole would be used to bury loot.
However, the four men had been drinking that night. After Willett had dug his own grave, the men decided to test Goucher’s new 12-gauge shotgun. Upon returning to the freshly dug hole, they were unable to locate it.
Monfort then shot Willett in the back of the head with a .22 bullet, causing him to fall face down. Goucher fired a 12-gauge shotgun round at close range into the back of Willett’s neck, while Craig discharged two 20-gauge shotgun rounds into Willett’s body. They rolled his body down a hill, and covered him with dirt and sticks.
James Willett’s head was never recovered. A pathologist suggested that because he was buried in a shallow grave and his head was partly severed by the shotgun blast, it’s likely that animals removed it.
Switchblade Knife
Monfort, Craig, and Goucher faced charges for the murder of James Willett, while Monfort, Craig, Cooper, Pitman, and Fromme faced charges for the murder of Lauren Willett.
Maria Alonzo was arrested while attempting to smuggle a switchblade knife into the Stockton jail while visiting her friends.
Monfort and Goucher accepted plea deals, resulting in second-degree murder convictions and sentences of five years to life in state prison.
Pitman and Cooper pleaded guilty to being accessories after the fact in the murder of Lauren Willett, each receiving a 5-year jail sentence. Pitman was paroled after serving 18 months.
Due to insufficient evidence, the charges against Lynette Fromme were reduced to being an accessory after the fact, and they were eventually dismissed. Three years later, she was sentenced to life imprisonment for pointing a gun at the President of the United States.
Trunk of a Burning Car
James Craig pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder and possessing an illegal weapon. He was handed consecutive sentences of five years and two years.
In March 1978, James Craig was granted parole and released from Folsom Prison. He then joined forces with Edward Barabas, a fellow convicted robber who had also been recently released from Folsom.
Craig and Barabas moved in with Priscilla Cooper, who was paroled for her part in the killing of Lauren Willett. Craig and Barabas made money through robberies and by targeting drug dealers.
In November 1978, Craig and Barabas were found in the trunk of a burning car. Firefighters, who were alerted that a car was on fire, extinguished the flames. What they encountered next was nothing short of astonishing — faint moans coming from the trunk of the car.
The charred bodies of Craig and Barabas were found with their hands tied behind their backs. Barabas was pronounced dead at the scene, having suffered two gunshot wounds to his head and neck, as well as severe burns.
Craig was found in critical condition, shot in the face and neck, with part of his jaw blown away by a shotgun blast. He was taken to the hospital, where he was put in a medically induced coma. Due to severe burns, Craig’s right arm and three fingers from his left hand were amputated at the hospital.
As Craig was being taken to the hospital, he repeatedly moaned, “She’s dangerous, she’s dangerous.” However, the police could not determine who “she” referred to. Craig succumbed to his injuries on December 22, a month after the incident.
On December 22, the same day Craig died from his injuries, two California Highway Patrol officers were shot and killed execution-style by Luis Rodriguez and Margaret Klaess. During the trial, Margaret Klaess gave testimony that in October 1978, she and Rodriguez teamed up with Craig and Barabas to rip off a cocaine dealer.
Shortly after the murders, Robert Chrisman turned himself in to the authorities, confessing that he, along with Chester Lee Hunt, Della Hunt, and Donna Bierer, had committed the murders of Craig and Barabas during a night of terror.
During that night, Barabas’ girlfriend, Jeanne Domer, who was babysitting Priscilla Cooper and James Craig’s one-month-old daughter Desiree, was taken to Chester Hunt’s apartment along with the baby and subsequently robbed and raped. Priscilla Cooper, who was out for the night, remained unharmed.
Chester Hunt, the main perpetrator, was later shot in the chin when he pulled a gun on a plainclothes officer on Stockton Boulevard during his apprehension. Hunt was sentenced to life and is presently serving his term in California State Prison.
Nov. 16, 1978 — Shot and Burned (click to expand)
Nov. 16, 1978 — Two Sacramento area men with connections to the Charles Manson family were found shot and stuffed into the trunk of a burning car early Wednesday morning on the Garden Highway. One is dead, the other is in critical condition.
Slain was Edward A. Barabas, 27, a parolee from Folsom Prison, who had been shot and burned. James Terrill Craig, 38, was in critical condition at University Medical center, part of his jaw blown away by at least one shotgun blast.
“This appears to have been planned as a double execution,” said police homicide Lt. Hal Taylor. As Craig was being taken to the hospital, he repeatedly moaned, “She’s dangerous, she’s dangerous,” But police had not determined who “she” was.
A police investigator indicated the shootings may have stemmed from a prison gang conflict. Craig in 1972 told Stockton police he was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a prison-based gang that he said included former female followers of Charles Manson.
Barabas’ father, William Barabas of Sepulveda, said Wednesday his son was living in Sacramento with Priscilla Cooper. Ms. Cooper was a Manson follower whose forehead was carved with a cross similar to the one Manson carved on his own forehead during his trial for the killing of actress Sharon Tate and others. Ms. Cooper and Craig served prison terms on charges stemming from two 1972 Stockton area murders.
A private security guard on duty at a nearby construction site and police Lt. John Carey, patrolling nearby, first reached the burning 1967 Dodge in which the men were found at 4 am. It was parked off the asphalt of the Garden Highway just west of Truxel Road, police said. Both heard moaning from the trunk of the car.
Firefighters extinguished the flames and opened the trunk to find Craig semiconscious and delirious, with his hands and feet bound. In addition to the jaw wound, shotgun pellets struck Craig above the eye and in the neck, investigators said.
Barabas, who was closest to the back seat, was burned and shot twice in the head with a medium-caliber handgun, police said. Also in the trunk was a dismantled 12-gauge shotgun believed to have been used on Craig, police said. The car was last registered to a woman in Hood, police said. Police believe the men were shot elsewhere and dumped into the trunk. Officers later found Craig’s car parked at 17th and Q Streets.
Barabas, the youngest of eight brothers, was also known as Ekron Chad Skeens. He was paroled from Folsom Prison on March 7 after serving nearly three years there and at San Quentin, Vacaville, and Soledad for robbing Allen’s Precious Metals in Carmichael, Department Of Corrections spokesman Phil Guthrie said.
Soledad officials put Barabas in protective custody when he was thought to be threatened by black and Mexican gangs, Guthrie said. In Vacaville, he was suspected of being involved in an assault on an inmate, Guthrie said.
Barabas was released on parole from Folsom just 10 days before Craig’s parole from the same prison. Craig, who had been in and out of Folsom since 1963, was finally discharged from parole in July, Guthrie said.
He first went to Folsom on a Los Angeles County robbery charge. In 1973, however, he went back to prison after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact in the murder of James And Lauren Willett, who had lived with Craig and ex-convict Michael Lee Montfort. Craig, Montfort, and three women followers of Charles Manson – Ms. Cooper, Nancy Laura Pitman, and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme – were arrested for the Willett murders. All but Ms. Fromme served prison terms for the slayings.
Mrs. Willett’s body was found under the Manson women’s house in Stockton, and Willett, a former Marine, was found decapitated and buried near Guerneville. Ms. Fromme was later convicted for her 1975 assassination attempt on President Ford in Sacramento. Barabas is the 58th homicide victim in the city of Sacramento this year. That figure is two more than the record total of 56 set in 1976.
Feb. 20, 1979 — Night of Terror (click to expand)
Feb. 20, 1979 — Two parolees with ties to the Manson family were fatally shot during a night of terror and violence that involved no fewer than 12 adults and five children, according to testimony just completed in a two-week-long preliminary hearing in Sacramento Municipal Court.
Four of the participants — Chester lee Hunt, 29; Robert Harry Chrisman, 25; Della Arlene Hunt, 28, and Donna Lorene Bierer — were bound over Friday to stand trial on charges of double murder and eight other felony counts in the late 1978 killings of James Terrill Craig, 38, and Edward Albert Barabas, 27.
Barabas and Craig were left in the trunk of a burning, gasoline-doused automobile early Nov. 15 on the Garden Highway.
Barabas was found dead of a gunshot wound in the brain, but Craig lingered for more than a month at University medical Center before dying Dec. 22.
Craig’s jaw had been shot away by a shotgun blast, his buttocks burned off in the auto fire and his right arm and three fingers of his left hand amputated at the hospital.
The bizarre story of the Barabas-Craig slayings emerged during a preliminary hearing before Municipal Court Judge Peter Mering.
The chain of events that proved so deadly began in July, according to Gordon Gunter, a house builder who admitted in court to being a part-time marijuana dealer. He lives on his own 50-acre pear orchard near Hood.
Gunter, who had known Hunt for about three years and was using Chrisman as a laborer in his construction business, was introduced to Barabas and Craig at that time by former Manson follower Priscilla Cooper, 27, convicted in 1973 as an accessory to murder in the death of Lauren Willett in Stockton.
Craig also had been convicted as an accessory to the murder of Mrs. Willett, whose body was found buried beneath the home of Ms. Cooper and two other Manson followers, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Nancy Laura Pitman.
And he was found guilty of the same crime in connection with the death of Mrs. Willett’s husband, James, who was beheaded and buried in a shallow grave near Guerneville.
Gunter testified that Ms. Cooper stopped by his house one day in July with Barabas and Craig, who had just gotten out of Folsom Prison.
“I tried to help them out,” Gunter said. “I know how hard it is for an ex-convict. I tried to get them a job.”
Barabas and Craig also became acquainted with Hunt, and the four of them, Gunter included, went out drinking together at times, Gunter said.
Instead of working with Gunter, Craig and Barabas started robbing drug dealers in the Sacramento area, according to law enforcement sources.
And in late October, they teamed with Luis Rodriguez and Margaret Klaess, the two persons who have been charged with the killing of two California Highway Patrol officers, in the robbery of a North Sacramento cocaine dealer, according to statements by Ms. Klaess.
About that same time, Gunter said, Chrisman came to Gunter with a warning: Hunt, Chrisman told him, intended to rob and kill Barabas, Craig, Gunter and Gunter’s wife, Margaret.
Alarmed but uncertain (“I didn’t know whether or not Chester had really said it”), Gunter went to Barabas and told him of Hunt’s plans. “The thing to do is just not associate with each other until you find out … the truth of the matter,” Gunter said he told Barabas.
But on Nov. 14, Barabas and Craig, armed with a sawed-off shotgun and a knife, invaded Hunt’s apartment at 127 Nedra Court.
Chrisman later related to Jeanne Domer, Barabas’ live-in girlfriend, what had happened, and Ms. Domer told the court: “They had Chester in the kitchen jerked up against the wall. (Chrisman) and Donna and Della were told to lie down on the front room floor. “Somehow or other, things got turned around. Chester got hold of a gun.”
What happened next hasn’t been clarified by the testimony, but it is clear that Barabas fired one round from the shotgun, which missed its mark, and he, in turn, was shot in the neck by Hunt.
Barabas and Craig tried to escape by way of the front door, but they apparently had trouble releasing the dead-bolt lock and Hunt had the drop on them.
Barabas and Craig were directed to lie on the floor, and both were bound. Enter Gordon Gunter.
Gunter had come to Chrisman’s apartment at 124 Nedra Court to see if Chrisman could work for him on the weekend, according to Gunter’s testimony.
Gunter was told that Chrisman was across the street at Hunt’s place. As he approached the Hunt residence, Gunter testified, he became alarmed. he saw the car driven by Barabas and Craig out front, then noticed bullet holes in the window and front door.
Afraid to return to his own pickup truck because someone was standing near it, Gunter said, he went around the apartment and attempted to hide in the alley. But Hunt and another young man found him there, and Hunt, armed, led Gunter into the house, he testified.
Once inside, Gunter was forced to take a position alongside Craig on the living room floor, and for some time, while Barabas lay wounded beside Craig, Hunt played games with his new captive, at one time directing Craig to inject battery acid into his veins.
Gunter said the needle was actually inserted into his hand, but Hunt had second thoughts, apparently, and confiscated the syringe and needle.
Hunt and Chrisman then left Barabas and Gunter in the custody of the women, both of whom were armed, Gunter said, and took Craig, wearing “thumb cuffs,” to the apartment of Barabas and Ms. Domer at 1625 Q St.
Ms. Domer, who said she was babysitting Priscilla Cooper’s 1-month-old infant at the time, testified she saw James “Spider” Craig through the peephole in her door, and when she opened the door, Craig came into the apartment with both Hunt and Chrisman, armed, behind him.
“Chester said he wanted me to take Eddie (Barabas) to the hospital,” Ms. Domer said. At about that time, a man came out of Ms. Domer’s bathroom and was pistol-whipped by one of the invaders in the apartment.
Ms. Domer then was blindfolded and driven, with the baby, to Hunt’s apartment, where she placed the infant on the couch. Also in the house at the time were Mrs. Hunt’s two children and Mrs. Bierer’s two children, who ranged in age from 2 to 9.
Craig took his place on the floor between Gunter and Barabas, who was still conscious despite the neck wound, and Ms. Domer was taken into a back bedroom, where she was forced to disrobe, molested and robbed of her jewelry by Hunt, he testified.
About 45 minutes after her arrival at the Hunt residence, ms. Domer testified, Barabas said something to Hunt and Hunt walked over to him and shot him. Gunter saw it, too. “He (Barabas) said, ‘You’re less than a man, ‘” Gunter related, and Hunt immediately aimed and fired, standing over the bound man about a foot away.
Barabas’ body went into convulsions, Gunter said, “but I assume he was dead. He was shot in the brain.” After a few minutes, Hunt went up to Barabas, kicked him in the head and said, “Die!” Gunter testified.
Hunt and Chrisman then tied up Craig and carried both men, Barabas and Craig, to the car, Gunter said. “They came back in and told Donna and Della to keep me on the floor, face down,” Gunter said.
“Chester said they’d be back to get me.” According to a conversation between Ms. Domer and Chrisman, which was related to the court by Ms. Domer, Chrisman was instructed by Hunt to shoot Craig with a shotgun after the two had driven Barabas and Craig to a spot on the Garden Highway.
“He tried to aim low so he wouldn’t hit him in the head,” Ms. Domer quoted Chrisman. “I think he might have said he closed his eyes. He said he didn’t have no choice.”
Craig lost his chin to the shotgun blast and the car was set afire. As Hunt returned to the residence where Donna Bierer and Della Hunt were still holding Gunter and Ms. Domer captive, Hunt said, according to Gunter, “We just burned up your two friends. They’re crispy critters.”
Was anything else said? Gunter was asked. “That I was next,” he said. Gunter said Hunt placed a pint of whiskey to his mouth and forced him to drink it. “He told me he was going to knock me out, put me in my truck and they were going to run the truck into the river with me in it,” Gunter said.
Instead, he testified, Hunt drove Gunter to his home near Hood, where Hunt kicked in the front door, forced Gunter’s wife, Margaret, to disrobe, then hit her twice in the mouth with his gun, Gunter related.
Hunt terrorized the couple by firing a round “through the window next to my head,” Gunter said. Three other shots were fired, one by Chrisman into the floor and two by Hunt, one into the water bed and one outside, Gunter testified.
Hunt and Chrisman eventually left the Gunters in their home near Hood and returned to the Hunt apartment, where Ms. Domer was still being held captive. Some 12 hours later, after Chrisman broke down crying upon hearing a television news account of the burning automobile, Ms. Domer was released.
Chrisman turned himself in to police at Sacramento Metropolitan Airport on Nov. 18, and on Nov. 21, Hunt was shot in the chin when he allegedly pulled a gun on a plainclothes officer outside a fried chicken stand on Stockton Boulevard.
Officers later found Mrs. Hunt, Mrs. Bierer and their four children in a nearby motel room.
James Craig and Priscilla Cooper’s daughter went to live with another couple whom she referred to as grandparents. She faced a challenging and difficult life, marked by drugs and alcohol.
She started drinking at the age of 11, and, much like her parents before her, found herself in prison at one point. However, she has turned her life around and is now a born-again Christian.
Arms Cut Off
In another bizarre connection to this case, a 15-year-old girl named Mary Vincent, who had been staying with Luis Rodriguez and Margaret Klaess around the same time they were associated with Craig and Barabas, was found wandering around naked with her arms cut off.
In September 1978, a couple of months before the murders of Craig and Barabas, Vincent was hitchhiking when she was picked up and subsequently raped. After being raped, Mary Vincent had her arms hacked off with an axe, was thrown down the road into a drainage ditch, and left to die.
Vincent, despite her hands being cut off, managed to climb back up, and walked naked for two miles seeking help, holding her bloody stumps above her head to slow the blood flow.
She later testified against her attacker, Lawrence Singleton, nicknamed the “Mad Chopper”, who received a 14-year sentence but was released after serving only 8 years.
Singleton later faced charges for the murder of Roxanne Hayes and was sentenced to death. Mary Vincent received prosthetic arms and moved forward with her life.
Fun fact: Cop killer Luis Rodriguez asked Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi to defend him during his trial.
878 Years to Life
Nancy Pitman and Michael Monfort got married on January 27, 1976, in a jailhouse wedding. They had three sons—Sean, Eric, and Orrin—all conceived during conjugal visits while Monfort was imprisoned. On May 4, 1984, Michael Monfort was released on parole and moved in with Nancy and their three sons.
In 1996, Michael Monfort was arrested again, pleading guilty to 32 armed robberies and received a sentence of 878 years-to-life. Michael Monfort died in prison on July 3, 2005.
Like Father, Like Son
The sons of Pitman and Monfort have long, violent criminal records. In 2016, Orrin Monfort, the youngest son, was arrested for threatening to kill a 16-year-old girl while trying to steal her bicycle.
Orrin Monfort’s record includes convictions for assault, theft, disorderly conduct, DUII, resisting arrest, coercion, and robbery. His brother, Eric Monfort, has faced armed robbery charges and other offenses, leading the police to consider him armed and dangerous.
Related News Articles
Double murder orphan now lives with grandmother
STOCKTON. Nov. 21, 1972 — Little Heidi Willett — orphaned at eight months by the double murder of her father and then her mother — Monday began her life anew some 3,000 miles away from the scenes of tragedy.
Some day she will perhaps learn that the better part of her first year on earth saw her parents become ensnarled in life-styles and philosophies of the “Charles Manson Family” and the “Aryan Brotherhood.”
Baby Heidi will grow up to learn the path James and Lauren Willett took led to shallow graves — his in a woods near Guerneville, and hers under a house in Stockton.
But all that is much in the future — for the immediate now, Heidi has been embraced into the home of her maternal grandmother. The blonde, blue-eyed girl was picked up here over the weekend by Mrs. George Olmstead of Camden, Conn., after arriving in Stockton Friday.
The process of proving relationship completed, Mrs. Olmstead left immediately for her New England home intent on putting as much distance as possible between the infant and the place where her mother was shot to death.
Mrs. Olmstead was visibly shaken by the shooting deaths of her daughter Mrs. Lauren Willett, 19, and her son-in-law James Willett, 26.
Heidi was found in a house at 720 W. Flora St. on Nov. 11 where police say her mother was shot in the head, then her body was buried in a shallow basement grave.
Mrs. Willett had been dead about 48 hours and police and public have pondered whether little Heidi had been witness to all or any part of the crime.
The body of her father was found Nov. 8 by a hiker. Sonoma County authorities estimate he had been slain, decapitated by shotgun blast, about a month before.
Two men and three women, who had been living at the Flora Street house with the young mother, have been charged with her murder. A fourth woman is in custody, but police have not disclosed a connection to the quintet or the crime.
Police say at least two of the women are members of the “Manson” cult whose leader was convicted of murders of actress Sharon Tate and eight others.
Officers further say the two men are members of a white racist brotherhood which has its roots inside the walls of the state’s prison system.
Authorities believe the Willets were killed because they knew too much about the activities of the accused.
A Manson girl goes to prison
Stockton — The Superior Court has sentenced Priscilla Cooper, 22, reputed member of the Charles Manson cult, to state prison for being a accessory in a Nov. 12 slaying. Miss Cooper was one of four persons charged in connection with the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Lauren Willett, whose body was discovered buried in the basement of a house at 720 W. Flora St., Stockton.
Superior Court Judge James P. Darrah allowed Miss Cooper 220 days credit for time served in the county jail awaiting conclusion of the case.
Michael Lee Monfort, 24, a transient, charged with Mrs. Willett’s slaying, and James Terrill Craig, 33, a transient, charged with being an accessory, were sentenced to state prison April 30 by Judge Darrah.
The remaining defendant in the case, Nancy L. Pitman, 25, also a reputed member of the “Manson Family,” is undergoing a 90-day diagnostic study at a correctional facility pending her re-appearance before Judge Darrah for sentencing on an accessory charge.
Girls killed to quiet witness
Stockton — A Marine veteran and his teenage wife were killed by a gang of ex-convicts and “Manson girls” to keep him from talking about a series of Los Angeles area robberies and to prevent her from discussing her husband’s death, authorities charged yesterday.
The district attorneys in Sonoma and San Joaquin Counties, where ex-Marine James T. Willett, 26, and his wife, Lauren, 19, were killed exactly one month apart, revealed the apparent motives for the slayings.
Three ex-convicts with the tattoos of a white racist prison gang called the “Aryan brotherhood” on their chests and three young women with scars of the “Manson family” cross their foreheads were charged with the murders Monday.
Sonoma District Attorney John Hawkes said Willett was shot to death “on or about Oct. 10” by the three male suspects, with whom he had been sharing a two-bedroom resort cabin near Guerneville. The body of Willett, with the head and one arm missing, was found last week in a shallow grave on a redwood-covered ridge outside the town.
“He was killed because the others were afraid he’d tell about robberies the three men committed in the Los Angeles area,” Hawkes said. “Apparently Willett was not involved in the robberies and his relationship with the men is unclear.”
Willett’s wife was shot to death last weekend at a house in Stockton she had been sharing with two of the ex-convicts and three women who once belonged to the “Manson family” headed by mass murderer Charles manson. Mrs. Willett and the couple’s eight-month-old daughter, Heidi, had been traveling with the suspects “apparently of her own free will” since her husband’s slaying.
San Joaquin District Attorney Joseph Bakers said she apparently was killed to keep her from going to authorities about her husband’s death following the discovery of his body. The daughter, who was found in the Stockton home Sunday, along with her mother’s body in the basement, marijuana, two shotguns and three pistols, was in custody yesterday of county juvenile authorities.
Baker charged Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, 24, Nancy Pitman, 24, Priscilla Cooper, 21, Michael Monfort, 24, and James T. Craig, 33, with the killing of Mrs. Willett. Hawkes charged Monfort, Craig and William M. Goucher, 23, with the slaying of of Willett.
Authorities were led to the woman’s body by Monfort, an ex-convict who used Willett’s name and identification papers to get free on bail after he and Goucher were arrested Oct. 30 for a Stockton liquor store robbery. Goucher was still in jail at the time Mrs. Willett was shot.
Testimony Brings Guilty Pleas
Santa Rosa. Jan. 25, 1974 — A state prison inmate’s last minute decision to testify for the prosecution forced the two defendants in the James Willett murder trial to plead guilty yesterday.
Dist. Atty. John W. Hawkes said after vacillating William Merland Goucher Jr. agreed to turn states evidence against his former partners in crime, Michael Lee Monfort and James Terrill Craig.
The jury trial ended just before noon yesterday when Monfort pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and Craig to a charge of being a accessory after the fact.
Both had been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of the 26-year-old victim, whose headless body was found in a shallow grave near Guerneville Nov. 8, 1972.
Authorities never found the victim’s head, and a pathologist theorized that since the grave was so shallow and the head was partially severed, it is likely that animals carried it away.
Goucher’s decision resulted in some 11th hour plea negotiations in which it was agreed Monfort would be allowed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder and Craig to being an accessory after the fact.
Hawkes explained since Goucher himself was an accessory to the slaying — he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last year — corroboration was needed to support his testimony.
Goucher was arrested in Stockton and was giving statements to police about the Willett slaying on Nov. 8, 1972, the same day an elderly man stumbled on Willett’s grave.
On Nov. 12, 1972, Monfort and Craig were arrested in Stockton after police found the body of Willett’s 19-year-old wife, Lauren Olmstead Willett, buried beneath a house there.
The two were prosecuted for the wife’s slaying, while Goucher was transferred to Sonoma County to stand trial for the husband’s murder.
Goucher pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sent to Deuel Vocational Institute in Tracy after testifying against Monfort and Craig before the Grand Jury.
Monfort subsequently pleaded guilty to second-degree murder of Willett’s wife and Craig to being an accessory after the fact. They were both sent to state prison.
Monfort faces a state prison term of five years to life for Willett’s slaying and Craig a maximum of five years — the same sentence they are now serving in connections with the wife’s death.
In the early stages of the case, authorities reported the defendants killed Willett because he threatened to quit their alleged armed robbery ring and inform on its activities.
Goucher told the Grand Jury Monfort tricked Willett into digging his own grave on the pretext the hole was going to be used to bury loot.
Monfort, Goucher testified, shot Willett in the back of the head with a pistol, then he and Craig blasted him with shotguns.
The men then went to Stockton taking Willett’s wife, who reportedly went along voluntarily.
Authorities said Monfort allegedly killed Mrs. Willett to silence her about the husband’s death, but a witness contended she was accidentally killed by Monfort playing a version of Russian roulette.
Police said Monfort and Craig were living in Stockton with three women linked to followers of the Charles Manson Family, responsible for the Sharon Tate murders in southern California.
Two of those women, Nancy Pitman, Monfort’s girlfriend, and Priscilla Cooper, Craig’s girlfriend, were brought to Sonoma County from the state prison for women in Frontera and were prepared to testify for the defense.
At the time of his arrest, Monfort was an escape from a state prison camp and was reputed to be a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a terrorist group of white inmates.
Manson cult woman gets charge cut
Stockton — A 24-year-old woman member of the Charles Manson cult had a charge of murder reduced Monday in connection with the death of Lauren Willett, 19, whose body was found in the basement of a Stockton home.
Charges were reduced from murder to that of being an accessory to murder against Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, and a preliminary hearing for her was postponed until Jan. 3.
Four other persons are being held in connection with the death of Mrs. Willett — Priscilla Cooper, 21, Nancy Pitman, 24, Michael Monfort, 24, and James T Craig, 33. Their preliminary hearing was also set for Jan. 3.
Vincent knew killing suspects
Sacramento — Mary Vincent, the 15-year-old whose armes were hacked off last September by a rapist near Modesto, lived for a time last summer with Luis V. Rodriguez and Margaret A. Klaess, the couple charged in the Dec. 2 killing of two California Highway Patrol officers in Yolo County.
Miss Vincent has been identified by both Rodriguez and Miss Klaess as the “Maria” who shared an apartment with them last June in Whittier. Their association was brief, ending three months before Miss Vincent ‘s terrible ordeal in Stanislaus County and six months before the slayings of Officers Roy P. Blecher and William M. Freeman along Interstate 80, a few miles west of Sacramento.
Miss Vincent, visited at her home in Las Vegas last weekend, said the Whittier residence known as the Olive Apartments and the names Luis and Maggie “sound familiar”, but she shook her head when asked if she could remember anything specific about their relationship.
“Is she (Maggie) kind of flat chested?” Miss Vincent asked. The revelation of the association, one more ironic twist in a curious chain of events linking three sensational California crimes of 1978 (the third was the car-trunk killings of James Craig and Edward Barabas in November), could have an impact on the pending trial of Rodriguez.
David Weiner, Rodriguez’s attorney, is considering calling Miss Vincent as a witness. Weiner said he believes Miss Vincent could shed some light on Miss Klaess’ credibility. Miss Klaess mentioned “Maria” on three occasions during her two-day stint on the stand in a Yolo County preliminary hearing that resulted in a holding order against Rodriguez.
On page 16 of the transcript, District Attorney Richard Gilbert’s questioning of Miss Klaess progressed as follows:
Q — And who did you live with at the Olive Apartments?
A — Luis and myself.
Q — No one else lived there with you?
A — A girl named Maria lived there at one time.
Q — And who is Maria? Was she an acquaintance ofeither of yours?
A — Yes. She was a girl we had living there.
Later in the testimony:
Q — How long did you live in Whittier?
A — A month.
On page 231, Weiner’s cross examination touched on Miss Klaess’ jealousy and her reaction to Rodriguez’s attentions:
Q — Who have you threatened over Luis?
A — A little girl named Maria.
And on page 233, Weiner asked: OK, now, did you involve yourself in a physical fight with Maria over Luis?
A — No, I didn’t get the chance.
Q — You tried to, did you?
A — Well, I was going to but instead I tried to start a physical fight with Luis but he won.
Earlier during the same testimony, Miss Klaess described a brief association with Barabas and Craig, who one month later would be shot and left to die in the trunk of a car on the Garden Highway here.
Barabas and Craig were ex-convicts with ties to the Manson Family who allegedly teamed with Rodriguez and Miss Klaess to “rip off” a North Area cocaine dealer about a month prior to the confrontation that led to their deaths (Craig lingered for more then a month in the hospital before succumbing to the wounds and burns he suffered).
Four persons, including two women, have been charged with murder and nine other felony counts in connection with the deaths of Barabas and Craig. There is no evidence that the relationship between Miss Klaess and Rodriguez and Barabas and Craig had anything at all to do with the slayings, and there is no indication that that Miss Vincent’s brief friendship with Rodriguez and Klaess tied her in any way with either of the other two crimes.
Miss Klaess identified “Maria” as Mary Vincent when she told investigators that Maria had lived with her grandfather, Clifford Vincent, a painter. Weiner confirmed that his client, Luis Rodriguez, has also identified “Maria” as Mary Vincent. Yolo County District Attorney Gilbert, the prosecuter in the Rodriguez case, said the connection between Rodriguez-Klaess and Mary Vincent had not been investigated but would be as a precautionary measure to make sure every conceivable angle relating to the case is covered.
Miss Vincent’s attorney in Las Vegas, Keith Galliher, cited the passage of time since the acquaintance. And Miss Vincent’s “press coordinator,” Joel Levy, who is acting as her liaison with the media, protested that public disclosure of a link between Miss Vincent and an accused murderer could have an adverse effect on fund-raising efforts on her behalf.
“I’m trying to do the best I can for Mary, financially, to get money into a trust fund because there’s hardly any money there and and they’ve got a lot of medical bills that are coming up yet,” Levy said. Levy pointed out that Mary is now in a position “of helping other kids”– she has launched a campaign to discourage hitchhiking — “and she’s going to a school for the handicapped, where she’s doing really well.”
Lawrence Singleton, a 51-year-old merchant seaman from Reno, was convicted in March of attempted murder, rape, mayhem, two counts of forcible oral copulation, sodomy and kidnapping in the crimes against Miss Vincent. The girl, who will be 16 years old next week, was found wandering nude, her arms cut off below the elbows, near Interstate 5 last September.
She recovered and has been fitted with prosthetic arms, the hooks she used to point out her attacker in a San Diego courtroom. After the verdict, Miss Vincent announced that her troubled life as a runaway was behind her. “I’m looking forward to a better life with my family,” she said. “I’m trying to get through to other boys and girls it’s no fun having hands like this.”
Bugliosi asked to defend Rodriguez
WOODLAND. Dec. 29, 1978 — Nationally known lawyers, including Vincent Bugliosi, are being asked to defend a man charged with killing two highway patrolmen, his public defender says.
The public defender, Rudolph Binsch, told the Woodland Municipal court Thursday that he learned of the efforts to defend Luis Rodriguez, 23, of Sacramento, from Rodriguez’ father, a resident of the Los Angeles area.
Binsch said he was told that a defense committee was being organized, and Bugliosi hadn’t decided whether to take the case.
Bugliosi’s secretary, contacted by The Associated Press, confirmed that he had been approached, but didn’t know what he would do. Bugliosi himself was out of the office for the day.
Rodriguez did not enter a plea. Judge Clarence Walden delayed a preliminary hearing until Jan. 15.
But a plea of innocent was entered by Margaret Klaess, 18, of Garden Grove.
Both are charged with the murder of two California Highway Patrol officers early Dec. 22 on Interstate 80 just west of Sacramento.
Ex-pal of Manson gets 878 year term
A member of the “Charles Manson family” received a 878-years-to-life term in prison Friday in what is believed to be one of the longest sentences ever handed down in Sacramento County and maybe the state.
Michael Lee Monfort, 47, who pleaded guilty as charged to 32 armed robberies, was sentenced under the state’s three-strikes law. His prior convictions included two murders and two robberies.
Although technically eligible for parole, Monfort must serve 750 years, six months and 15 days before his first parole hearing in 2746, said Deputy District Attorney Robert Morgester. The only moment Monfort changed the chiseled-stone look on his face was when Judge Michael G. Virga knocked 128 days off his sentence for time served and good behavior.
Breaking his pursed lips, the pale, clean-shaven Monfort smiled and said to the judge, “Thanks for the credits.” Previously, the longest sentence in Sacramento County was 400 years, according to several veteran attorneys.
Acting as his own attorney, Monfort surprised Morgester on Friday morning with a message that he had changed his mind about going to trial. “He said he wanted to stop wasting the taxpayers’ money,” Morgester said. “He figured all it took for a life sentence was a conviction on any of his 32 counts.”
More than 20 years ago, Monfort pleaded guilty to the second-degree murders of a young Marine and his wife. Lauren Willett, 19, was found shot through the head in a shallow grave under a Stockton home. The headless body of James T. Willett, 26, was found buried in a redwood grove near Guerneville.
Morgester said police have confirmed that Monfort is a former member of the Charles Manson family. Manson and several of his cult followers are serving prison terms for the 1969 slaughter of actress Sharon Tate and others in Los Angeles.
Also arrested with Monfort in connection with Lauren Willett’s 1972 murder were three women described as Manson girlfriends, among them Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme. The charge against her eventually was dropped. Several years later, however, Fromme was arrested in Sacramento for the attempted murder of President Ford. Fromme is serving a life sentence.
Monfort and two others were arrested last year after an eight-month series of armed robberies including restaurants, yogurt shops and video stores.
Dark Prophets 